ENGLISH NOUNS

Nouns and noun groups

Nouns semantically refer to things or entities,
concrete entities, names of actions,
relationships, emotions, qualities, phenomena
and many other classes of entities.
Nouns have the categories of number, gender
and case.
Nouns have distinctive dependents such as
determinatives, AdjGs, NGs, PGs,
PossessiveGs and clauses.
The system of countability
The count and mass distinction is expressed in
English by morphological and syntactic means.
Grammatical markers of NGs:

1. The singular form of the noun with zero

determiner: I always take coffee with milk
2. The singular form of the noun preceded by all:
I say this in all sincerity.
3. The singular form of the noun quantified by
much, little, a little. E.g.There is much noise
in this room.
Grammatical markers of count NGs
1. The singular form of the noun is preceded by
a(n): I’m a teacher.
2. The singular form of the noun determined by
each or every; Each day is different.
3. Plural form of the noun preceded by a plural
determiner: few chances, these aircraft,
those sheep, several series.
4. Plural number concord with the verb or
pronoun; People like to be happy, don’t
they?
The system of definiteness
Definite nouns=given information
Indefinite nouns= new information(not
known to the addressee
The system of definiteness is expressed
syntactically by the use of specific and
non-specific determiners, in particular, by
the definite, indefinite and zero articles.
The class of nouns
Syntactic structure: a noun is the main
item (or head) of a noun phrase, as in the
new telephones. It is often preceded by
one of a small class of determiners, such
as the or some.
Syntactic function: a noun functions as
the subject, object, or complement of a
clause, as in Apples are popular, I like
apples, Those objects are apples.
Grammatical morphology
A noun can change its form to express to
express a contrast in singular/plural
number or to mark the genitive case as in
cat/cats/cat’s/cats.
Lexical morphology: a noun can be
formed by adding one of a small list of
suffixes (e.g. –age, -ment, -tion) to a verb,
and adjective, or another noun.
 The main subclasses
Nouns

Proper Common

count noncount

concrete abstract concrete abstract

Proper and common nouns
Proper nouns are names of specific people, places,
events, publications, and so on. They differ from
common nouns in 3 main ways.
1. Proper nouns can stand alone as a clause element
as in
(I like London. Fred is here. Today is
Tuesday.),whereas only certain common can (Chess
is fun, but *Egg is bad.*Book is red. *I see cat.)
2. Proper nouns do not usually allow a plural.
(Londons, Freds, Everests), whereas most common
nouns do (books, eggs, pens, but *musics)
Proper and common nouns
3. Proper nouns are not usually used with determiners.
(*A London, the Fred, some France), whereas common
nouns are (a book, the music, some bread).
In some cases, proper nouns can behave like common
nouns:
Look at all those Smiths.
I used to know a Mary Jones.
I hate Mondays.
PNs are written with an initial capital letter. But
not all words with initial capitals are proper
nouns- That’s a Big Deal!
Count and non-count nouns
Common nouns are divided into two
types.
Count nouns refer to individual,
countable entities, such as books, eggs,
horses.
Noncount nouns (mass nouns) refer to an
indifferentiated mass or notion, such as
butter, music, advice.
Differences between count and noncount
nouns
Count nouns cannot stand alone in the singular
(Book is red); noncount nouns can. (Chess is
fun.)
Count nouns allow a plural (books, eggs)
Noncount nouns do not. (Musics)
Count nouns occur in the singular with a (a
book); noncount nouns with some (some
music). Both types can occur with the (the
book, the music)

Differences between count and noncount
nouns
Some nouns can be either count or noncount,
depending on their meaning. E.g. Cake is
countable in Would you like a cake? But non
count in Do you like cake?
There are many such pairs.
 The lights were amazing. Light travels very
fast.
 I’ve bought some bricks. It’s built of brick.
 I’ve had some odd experiences. I’ve not had
much experience.
 A kindle of kittens
A skulk of foxesA group of puppies
A group of puppies

A skulk of foxes A flock of sheep

Abstract and concrete nouns
Both count and noncount nouns can be
divided into abstract and concrete types.
Concrete nouns refer to entities which can be
observed and measured, such as book, car,
elephant, and butter.
Abstract nouns refer to unobservable
notions, such as difficulty, idea, certainty.
There are nouns which permit both abstract
and concrete interpretations. E.g. structure,
music, permit.
 Gender
No grammatical gender in English as in
French and German.
It has ways of identifying natural gender. We
can distinguish animate beings from
inanimate entities, personal from nonpersonal
beings, and male from female sexes.
Inanimate nouns (box, advice) pattern only
with it and which. E.g. Here is a box. It is the
box which was in the street.
 Gender
Animate nouns make varying use of he/she
and who, and are divided into personal and
nonpersonal types.
Personal animate nouns refer to males and
females, and pattern with he/she/who, as in
Here is a man. He is the man who was in the
street. Here is a woman. She is the woman who
was in the street.
Such pairs as host/hostess and prince/princess,
waiter/waitress make the gender clear.
 Gender
Some nouns can be either he or she (dual
gender). E.g. artist, cook, teacher, cousin.
Your cousin is a teacher, isn’t she/he?
Nonpersonal animate nouns refer to
animals. Most take it/which, but those
with a special place in human society take
he/she/who, and some even have distinct
male/female forms; bull/cow, dog/bitch,
tiger/tigress
 Gender
In British English, collective nouns such as
government, committee, team, army and
family, can take either it/which or they/who,
depending on the point of view involved.
The singular stresses the impersonal unity of
the group, the plural the personal
individuality of its members: The committee
which has met … It is concerned… The
committee who have met… They are
concerned…
 Gender
In American English plural forms are less
common. E.g. Government always takes
singular verb form as in Government
develops a new action plan.
 Pronouns
Pronouns are words which stand for nouns, a
whole noun phrase or several noun phrases.
They replace a noun in I’ve got a red hat and
Jane’s got a brown one.
They replace a noun phrase in My uncle John’s
just arrived. He’s quite tired.
They refer to a very general concept which
includes the meaning of many possible noun
phrases in I can see someone in the distance.
(men, women, boys, girls, soldiers)
 Pronouns
They refer to some unspecified event of
the situation.(pointing) Look at that! He’s
going to crash.
Some pronouns have separate cases for
subject and object functions, as in I vs,
me.
Some show a contrast between personal
and nonpersonal gender and between male
and female he/she vs it, who vs which.
 Types of pronoun
There are many kinds of word which can act as a pronoun,
but they express different kinds of meaning.
 Personal pronouns-the main means of identifying speakers,
addressees and others: I, you, he, she, it, we, they
Reflexive pronouns, always ending in –self or –selves
(myself)
Possessive pronouns-used to express a two-way
relationship: each other, one another.
Interrogative pronouns-used to ask questions about
personal and nonpersonal nouns:who?, whom?whose?,
which?, what?
 Types of pronoun
Relative pronouns-(who, whom, whose,
which, that)are used to link a subordinate
clause to the head of the noun phrase, as
in That’s the book which caused the
trouble.
Demonstrative pronouns(this/these,
that/those)express a contrast between
near and distant as in Take this one here ,
not that one over there.
 Types of pronoun
They also have extended meanings. E.g. this
may be used to introduce a new topic in
familiar speech (I saw this girl) and that may
express a negative attitude in That Roger!
Indefinite pronouns express a notion of
quantity. There are 2 main types.
1. Compound PNs consist of two elements
every-, some-, any-, or no-+one, body or
thing.
 Types of pronouns
2. Of- pronouns consist of several forms
which may appear alone or be followed
by of (I’ve eaten all the cake/all of the
cake.) Their meanings range from the
“universal” sense of all and both to
“negative” sense of none and few.
Other pronouns in this class are much,
many, more, most, less, fewer, some, and
neither.